Depends. Does the hero turn into an antihero? Or does he turn into a scumbag? Big difference there. 47cc

Both tropes are good, went with the villain this time.

Echoing what others have said, if it's done well, either can work.

But I chose the "villain turning good" in the end. I personally vastly prefer a well executed redemption narrative (especially if adequate focus is put on the consequences of their previous actions) over a revenge/corruption one. The former, I feel, is harder to do well, while the latter is harder to screw up.

I don't like either, actually, but I find the hero turning evil a bit more believable... Not to mention that it creates interesting chances to explore the many ways in which someone may come to betray their own ideals due to desperation/misguided notions/coercion/brainwashing/lust, etc.

I particularly hate it when the villain/ess falls in love with the hero/ine and becomes good, because I loathe the nonsensical "falling in love/having sex with the MC automatically redeems you of all evil" rationale. Even worse when the villain is part of an "evil" or "inhuman" species and is treated like a human (while the rest of their kind is killed/tormented) because they fell in love with a human 🤢 😔 I do understand the mindset behind it (it's the same reason, for example, that dogs are loved and cats are (mostly) hated: because the former species favours humans and the latter is neutral), but that kind of hypocrisy never does stand well with me. I'm just weird, I guess.

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Hero turning evil. >=D It's more of my style.

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Echoing what others have said, if it's done well, either can work.

But I chose the "villain turning good" in the end. I personally vastly prefer a well executed redemption narrative (especially if adequate focus is put on the consequences of their previous actions) over a revenge/corruption ...

Agreed, actually. I voted the other way around, based on what I like writing... then again, my heroes rarely go 'bad', they mostly just quit. I do love a good redemption storyline though, I'll give you that.

However, I don't quite agree with the latter point. I feel that a corruption narrative's interest generation depends on how heavily it relies on things like "magic" or influence or whatever excuse they have at the time. I have to say I genuinely haven't seen much of Hero going Bad done in a logical way, where everything leading up to that point was a natural consequence of something else, leading to the hero not just giving up, but becoming a villain themselves.

That being said, the few methods I can think of utilizing that trope are hard to pull off well... Hm... Might be why so many of them are not used so much.

I get the feeling a lot people think heroes turning evil means them turning anti-hero, i.e. not actually evil. I want to see some actual corruption and turncoating, like with Griffith turning into a demon overlord in Berserk or Superman becoming dictator in Injustice.

Definitely villain to good because like others I am a sap for redemption stories and I like to believe in people.

I've never read hero to evil which I take as vastly different from hero to anti-hero. I've read the latter and probably don't want to read the former because done without brainwashing or something similar, it's just depressing.

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To me, it has a lot to do with the delivery. When a character decides to change his or her current standing, there must be a good amount of story progression and relate-able events so that I can sympathize or empathize with the change.

Like a good person who gave up on goodness after trying really hard to do good but end up doing nothing (Han Si-Hyun from Trace 1.5: Communicator). Or a bad character who isn't really bad in the first place but is made out to be bad by others (Accelerator from Toaru Majutsu no Index).

Ultimately, I am more interesting in the reasons for their change than the change itself. It's not a simple black and white scenario with good and evil but a grey area which gives individuality and complexity to the character.

I think the last time I enjoy a character changing side is when I read Noblesse with Roctis Karvei.

He is genuinely good but decided to do evil in order to protect his evil daughter from the good guys.